1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print-data processing apparatus and a print-data processing method for processing print data.
2. Description of the Related Art
As one-to-one marketing has expanded in recent years, direct mail for providing information according to individual customers' needs has been widely employed. To print such variable jobs, page description languages (PDLs) such as Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML, which is a registered trademark of Print on Demand Initiative Incorporated), Variable-data Intelligence PostScript Printware (VIPP, which is a registered trademark of Xerox Corporation), Variable Print Specification (VPS), and FreeForm are employed. These page description languages are configured to include many pieces of variable data including customer information and reusable data that can be repeatedly used on multiple pages.
For example, when PPML data is used as print data, there is a characteristic specification that reusable data can be referred to a multiple number of times within a defined range. Therefore, in a print-data processing apparatus such as a print controller for analyzing print data, a reusable object is cached as analyzed image data. The cached image data is combined with the foregoing variable data in the print-data processing apparatus, and the generated image data is printed. This print technique is described in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-199105.
However, with the foregoing technique in the related art, cached image data generated by analyzing a reusable object may be high-resolution color image data. FIG. 12 shows specific examples of the capacity of cached image data.
Referring to FIG. 12, high-resolution (dpi) data, color (CMYK) data, and image data of a large sheet size tend to significantly increase in data size.
In this manner, the data size of image data obtained by analyzing a reusable object increases. In this case, stress is placed on a memory in a print-data processing apparatus, resulting in a decrease in the operation performance of the print-data processing apparatus or incapability of the print-data processing apparatus to print the print data. Furthermore, when, for example, a reusable object is raster-image processed (hereinafter referred to as RIP-processed) to generate an image immediately after analysis of print data begins and the image is deleted after printing based on the print data is completed, stress is placed on the memory for a long time.